


Boredom Is The Only Thing I'm Comfortable Killing

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: wolf!verse codas [2]
Category: Cobra Starship
Genre: Gen, Wolf pride rally, some violence, vampire themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3447596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabe is a lonely vampire, Vicky is alpha in a pack of morons, and they meet one night in New York City just after sunset.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boredom Is The Only Thing I'm Comfortable Killing

**Author's Note:**

> For the squid, because vampires are awesome.

Tugging his collar up to his ears, Gabe wondered silently to himself why he couldn’t have gotten bitten by a werewolf. Why, of all things, did it have to be a vampire? He could have been bitten by a wolf, a spider that turned him into spiderman, a gopher that gave him rabies, a snake, a giraffe even! But no, he had to get bitten by a vampire, and it sucked. 

Gabe was trying to make the best of it. He’d been undead for decades. He knew how it worked by then. He didn’t physically have to sleep, but staying up too many days in a row would mentally exhaust him. He didn’t technically have to breathe, but old habits died hard. He could scale up the side of a building if he wanted- even fall off the top and survive so long as he was paying enough attention to land correctly, but God forbid he get too close to a patch of sunlight. 

His least favorite part was the blood drinking. It wasn’t so much the blood itself (it actually tasted a lot better than he would have imagined, had the thought crossed his mind before). His trepidation came with the fact that he had to hurt people to get it. He had to kill people. People with lives. People who, no matter how much Gabe tried to justify it to himself by hunting in the “bad” neighborhoods or on the scary streets, didn’t deserve to die. He grew up in those kinds of neighborhoods. He had been one of those people. 

He’d met an elderly hippie vampire on the street one night twenty years ago who told Gabe that he could survive off of animal blood if he wanted to, but the idea of stalking and killing poor innocent stray kitties and puppies seemed even worse somehow. The only other option would be rats, which didn’t deserve to die more than anything else, and Gabe didn’t really want to spend a lot of time in the sewers, thanks. 

The whole ‘killing things’ situation made Gabe sick to his stomach, but he couldn’t stop. He’d tried to, actually. He’d figured that if someone had to die, then it might as well be him, and had tried starving himself into nonexistence. Unfortunately, the immortality thing wasn’t a joke. He’d gone nearly two weeks, half of that time filled with stomach cramps and headaches and so much fatigue that he could barely move. He spent the last day fading in and out of consciousness and nearly certain that he was finally going to die, but after another black out he’d woken up in his apartment, covered in blood with a stranger’s corpse on the floor next to him, entirely drained and roughed up pretty badly. He couldn’t remember doing it, but he knew he was responsible. He gave in and set himself on a once-a-week feeding schedule, not as often as his body would like, but as much as his psyche could bear.

Gabe tried not to think about being a vampire too often, but it was hard. He could barely remember what it had been like to be a human. His only friends now were homeless people and other vampires, most of whom creeped him out a little bit and none of whom smelled very nice. Something about being an undead creature of the night seemed to lead vampires to stop showering, and while they were all pretty nice people, Gabe missed his old mortal friends. They’d usually smelled pretty good. 

Right at that moment, though, the only thing Gabe could smell was fur. Werewolf fur and the cold bite in the air, and there might have also been traces of weed somewhere… It was mostly fur though. In front of him, a young couple walked eagerly down the street, wagging tails hanging out of the back of their jeans, ears protruding from their hair. He followed them down the block towards the park where a young man on a makeshift stage ripped his shirt off and howled into the microphone. A mass of people sporting various degrees of wolf-ness howled back at him. It was probably the greatest thing Gabe had ever witnessed. He laughed out loud and ran to join the crowd of people surrounding the stage.

Someone on stage was shouting words about peace and equality and pride and superhuman rights. ‘Superhuman?’ Gabe wondered to himself. He’d never heard it referred to like that before. He liked it. He wished he were a werewolf. 

The crowd surged forward behind him, and Gabe found himself getting sucked in. He stumbled forward when someone pressed against his back, and he laughed as he remembered rock festivals from when he was still able to venture out in the sun. Someone who actually managed to be taller than Gabe was (it was kind of a rare occurrence) looped their arm around his shoulders and squeezed. The man had a narrow face and skinny, pointy shoulders. His gold eyes glinted as he tossed his head back and howled up at the sky. Gabe, swept up in the action, howled with him. He couldn't see the moon over the mammoth buildings that surrounded them and blocked out any idea of the horizon, but the sky had taken on the gentle glow of a sun just set, so he imagined it was up there somewhere and howled along, as if the moon meant anything to him. In a way it did, he mused. The moon was much kinder than the sun. It meant freedom.

The wolf who had been friendly a moment earlier dove deeper into the crowd, and Gabe watched his head above everyone else's as he bobbed and slithered his way to the front.

Being a tall guy had its advantages since Gabe could see almost everything from his position in the back of the crowd. As the mass surged forward again, bodies pressing against bodies pressing against tails and skin and fur, a smaller guy tripped and fell. Gabe grabbed him by his arms before anyone could step on him and hauled him back to his feet. Just like that, there was a tall woman at his side, frowning and latching her hand onto the back of the man's neck. She shook him gently. 

"Careful, Suarez. Jesus. You want to get crushed to death?" She asked him, shaking him again. The small man, Gabe hadn't caught his name over the din of the crowd, tried biting at her arm until she let go and then shoved her shoulder. They were smiling, it must have been playful. 

"I can't fucking see anything from here," he complained, scratching idly at his beard before getting up on tip toes in a failed attempt to be taller than anyone else. "C'mon, let's push to the front. Man, Jon would fucking love this!" 

The guy grabbed onto another man, this one short but not as short, with large eyes and a smile on a smooth face. The two squeezed between some larger wolves in front of them and disappeared from sight. They were too small for Gabe to follow them with his eyes, and they were lost in the sea of people in front of him. 

He turned his gaze back to the woman who seemed to be both frowning and grinning at him simultaneously. 

"Thank you," she said, clapping his shoulder in what must have been affection. He flinched, not used to being touched after months spent only with vampires, who seemed to prefer crossed arms and plenty of private space, hardly any hand movements at all, hushed voices. Being here was a huge contrast. Gabe would love to be one of these people. As the crowd surged again, pressing even tighter (there was someone speaking on stage, and it was getting everyone excited. Gabe saw a few news vans off to the side, along with crowds of curious mortals watching wide eyed and mystified) Gabe felt the heat that seemed to be radiating off of everyone seep into him through his jacket. It was the first time in months that he'd been aware of temperature. It was the first time that he'd realized he'd been cold.

Gabe took a moment to hope that the short guys from earlier hadn't been crushed to death, but this time it was him who stumbled, losing his balance and falling against the chest of a slightly shorter but much wider man. 

The guy caught him, firm hands shoving him upright by his shoulders, but not before the guy got a facefull of Gabe. Gabe was about to apologize when the man scowled, a growl rising up from his throat, lips pulling back to show pointed teeth.

"Why do you smell like a....?" and that was when Gabe knew he'd been caught. It had only been a matter of time, and now his gig was up. 

He turned and fled, shoving people out of the way. He hoped he didn't hurt anyone with all his flailing, but they were werewolves. Wolves were tough. They'd be fine. He didn't have time to slow down anyways. He had to get out of the crowd before-

"Vampire!" A man's voice shouted, shattering Gabe's thoughts and propelling him faster. He had to get out. He had to get out. "There's a vampire in the crowd! Somebody grab him!"

"Here he is!" A voice that sounded young called from someplace that wasn't next to Gabe, thank God.

"I'm not a vampire, Chris! Get offa me, ya asshole!" Another young voice yelled. Teenagers. They provided a distraction that let Gabe finally break through the last wall of the crowd, stumbling and falling, cracking his knees against the pavement. The concrete was hard, but he was fine. He jumped to his feet and sprinted as fast as he could down the block before throwing himself around the corner into an alley way. The outraged voices swelled behind him but didn't follow him. Just to be safe, he jumped and threw himself up onto a fire escape, then scaled up to the roof of the several story apartment building and heaved himself up onto the roof. From up there he could see everything, and he was relieved that no one had followed. His heart had started beating, making him feel a bit dizzy and nauseous. He took a moment to let it calm down, but even then it didn't stop. It kept thudding softly under his ribs uncomfortably, making him tingle. It had stopped beating for a while before.

He walked to the edge and sat down, letting one leg dangle as he straddled the short wall at the edge of the rooftop. It was chaos, the crowd shoving and growling, wolves breaking off and lurking out, sniffing the air. Some had changed over completely. The mortals looked terrified. Some screamed and ran when wolves got too close.

Gabe saw the short guy from earlier, the one with the beard jump on stage and yell "Guys! You have to calm down! We're more civilized than this! What will the mortals think!?" He jumped off the stage when someone shoved him off and disappeared into the swarm of bodies. Gabe hoped he stayed on his feet this time. 

The shouting below made Gabe feel sick to his stomach. "Murderer!" "Track him down! We'll teach that blood sucker a lesson!" "Savage!" "Don't let him get away!"

A thunder-like voice came over the microphone so loud that Gabe felt it vibrating in his chest. It kick started his heart again, and he almost threw up. "Everybody quiet!"

Gabe flinched, and he watched as the mob below went still. He stopped breathing, but he didn't really notice.

"Everybody in your human forms now! If you're an alpha, and one of your wolves is too young to control their transformations, it is your job to hold onto them!"

The crowd was still buzzing with conversation, but there were significantly less wolves in the crowd, more humans. The wolf on stage, a large, scary man with wide shoulders, built arms, and a square jaw held the microphone to his mouth and growled, deep and menacing. The crowd became silent. 

The man glared them down firmly before handing the microphone off to a girl with a shaved head. Gabe watched everyone stirring around in the space below, puppies being held by the scruffs of their necks, teenagers being shushed, everyone staring wide eyed at the wolves on stage. The wolves up there were talking again, about peace and equality for everyone and other things, and Gabe was so focused on them that he spaced out a bit, and was caught by surprise by a hand on his shoulder. 

"Hey,"

Gabe yelped and jumped, and he would have fallen off the roof if the girl hadn't grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him back on. He fell down onto the floor of the roof, landing hard on his back. He would have had the wind knocked out of him if breathing mattered at all. The girl stood over him, black hair hanging over her face and a smirk matching her one raised eyebrow. If he tilted his head a little, he'd probably be able to see up her dress, but she was also in the position to easily stomp on his throat if she noticed, so. She held her hand down to him and he took it, let her pull him to his feet. She was almost as tall as he was. 

"Thanks," he said. 

"You're an idiot," Gabe couldn't really deny that statement, considering the last half hour. He shrugged.

"So are you up here to kill me now? Cause it's harder than you'd think. I would know," he sat up on the wall again, but his head was spinning. The idea of possibly getting his ass kicked by a hot werewolf girl kept his heart thumping in his chest. It felt awful. 

"Did you really think that throwing yourself into a sea of werewolves was a good idea?" She asked, and she was smirking at him still, arms crossed. Gabe shrugged.

"I knew it was stupid, but..." He said, feeling awfully stupid at the moment, with her staring him down like that. His heart wouldn't calm down. He was probably going to pass out.

"Whoa there," she stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder, and Gabe realized he'd been swaying. "I don't think sitting up on the wall is a good idea right now," he let her pull him until he was sitting on the floor, and then she sat next to him. 

"What's your name, bloodsucker?" She asked. He ran his tongue over his fangs. 

"Gabe," he answered. "Yours?"

"Victoria, but call me Vicky,"

“If you must know,” Gabe stretched out one long leg and pulled up the other knee. He folded his hands over it. His knees ached from his fall earlier, a bone deep ache that would probably leave some gnarly bruises. Being a vampire and all, bruises turned marvelous shades of red and purple and green that lasted for longer than they had when his body was different. He looked forward to staring at them for three weeks. The rest of him felt pretty achy too, from getting pushed and pulled in the crowd, but it was a good ache. He'd missed it. "If you must know, it gets pretty boring hanging out by myself all the time. This vampire thing kind of sucks, so I thought I'd come hang out with people who know how to have a good time,"

She was making a peculiar face, which Gabe realized meant that she was trying not to laugh. Gabe laughed and shoved her shoulder. 

"Asshole! What are you laughing at?"

"Being a vampire sucks, hm?" She smirked at him, and Gabe had to laugh. He'd set himself up for that one. 

"It does, florecita. It really does," they smiled at each other for a moment before something down on the street caught Victoria's attention. She perked up and frowned over the edge of the roof; Gabe followed her gaze to what might have been the two short guys from earlier, arguing with some other wolves. He watched as someone got pushed back against a wall, and he flinched when Victoria growled next to him. 

"Uhm...?"

"I gotta go," she stood up and wiped her hands on her skirt as if dusting herself off. "My puppies are in trouble. Fucking idiots," 

She smiled like she was fond of them, or like she was going to stir up trouble. She turned to leave, but then stopped and crouched on the ground next to Gabe. He watched her and most definitely didn't look up her skirt. He was a gentleman. 

She used a chipped-off piece of brick to scratch a number in the concrete, then she stood up and smiled down at him. 

"In case you get lonely again, vampire. My pack isn't exclusive," she went to the edge of the roof and began climbing, so fast that Gabe was scared she'd fallen for a moment. He repeated the number to himself a dozen times so he wouldn't forget it, and by then his head was done spinning. He got up, threw himself off the opposite edge of the roof, and disappeared into the night.


End file.
